This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) |
Simon Lindley (born 10 October 1948) is an English organist, choirmaster, conductor and composer. He was Leeds City Organist from 1976 to 2017 (named City Organist Emeritus in Summer 2017) and is Organist Emeritus of Leeds Minster, having been organist and Master of the Music Leeds Minster from 1975 until his retirement in 2016. [1]
Lindley was born in London. His father was an Anglican priest, and his mother was a writer, the daughter of Belgian poet and art historian Emile Cammaerts. After early education at Magdalen College School, Oxford, and graduation from the Royal College of Music in London, Lindley began an organ career in 1969, playing at various London churches and recording organ music. [2]
Lindley served as an organ tutor at the Royal School of Church Music and later as Assistant Master of Music at St Albans Cathedral to Peter Hurford and Director of Music at St Albans School. [3] From 1975/6 he became Leeds City Organist and Organist & Master of the Music at Leeds Minster, and directed the Choir of Leeds Parish Church. From 1977, he has served a Music Director of Saint Peter's Singers of Leeds, a post he held until 2020. He was Senior Lecturer in Music at Leeds Polytechnic - now Leeds Beckett University from 1976 to 1987 and held the post of Senior Assistant Music Officer for Leeds City Council from 1987 to 2011. During the 1970s and 80s he was Chorus Master to Halifax Choral Society and Leeds Philharmonic Society. Since 1991 he has served as Secretary of the Church Music Society. [2] From 2009 and 2010 respectively, Lindley has held posts as conductor of Sheffield Bach Society and Doncaster Choral Society until stepping down in 2023. From 1997 until 2022 he served as Music Director of Overgate Hospice Choir Halifax.
Lindley was president of the Royal College of Organists from 2000 to 2003, and of the Incorporated Association of Organists from 2003 to 2005. In 2001 he received an honorary doctorate from Leeds Metropolitan University now Leeds Beckett University and a similar distinction was conferred upon him in 2012 by the University of Huddersfield. He served on the editorial panel for New English Praise (2006), a supplement to the New English Hymnal, and he worked extensively on compilation of the supplement. [2] He has been chairman of the Ecclesiastical Music Trust from 2004 and was Chairman of the Yorkshire College of Music and Drama from 2006 to 2013. He was in office as Grand Organist to the United Grand Lodge of England from 2010 to 2012 and has held office since 2010 in the Masonic Province of Yorkshire West Riding as Provincial Grand Organist. [2] Lindley is the recipient of the "Spirit of Leeds" award from Leeds Civic Trust presented in 2006 and The Leeds Award from Leeds City Council in 2016.
Lindley has recorded as organ soloist with orchestras including the BBC Philharmonic and Northern Sinfonia, with Huddersfield Choral Society, and as accompanist to such musicians as violinists David Greed and Marat Bisengaliev and cornet virtuoso Phillip McCann. He also holds office as conductor of choirs and choral societies in Doncaster, Halifax, Leeds and Sheffield. [2] From 2006 until 2019 he gave a monthly Organ Concert each month in Fulneck Moravian Church.
Sir Edward Cuthbert Bairstow was an English organist and composer in the Anglican church music tradition.
Francis Alan Jackson was a British organist and composer who served as Director of Music at York Minster for 36 years, from 1946 to 1982.
Andrew Parnell is an organist and harpsichordist.
Stephen Mark Darlington is a British choral director, organist and conductor who served as Director of Music at Christ Church, Oxford, from 1985 to 2018. He is currently interim Director of Music at St John's College, Cambridge. His brother is the conductor Jonathan Darlington.
David Hill, is a choral conductor and organist. Since July 2013, he is Professor Adjunct of Choral Conducting and Principal Conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. His highest-profile roles are as Chief Conductor of the BBC Singers from September 2007 until 2017, and Musical Director of The Bach Choir since April 1998.
Leeds Minster, or the Minster and Parish Church of Saint Peter-at-Leeds is the minster church of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It stands on the site of the oldest church in the city and is of architectural and liturgical significance. A church is recorded on the site as early as the 7th century, although the present structure is a Gothic Revival one, designed by Robert Dennis Chantrell and completed in 1841. It is dedicated to Saint Peter and was the Parish Church of Leeds before receiving the honorific title of "Minster" in 2012. It has been designated a Grade I listed building by Historic England.
James Anthony O'Donnell is a British organist, choral conductor and academic teacher who has been a professor of organ at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in Connecticut, United States, since 2023.
Philip John Moore is an English composer and organist.
Andrew Cantrill FRSA is a British-born organist and choral director. He has held cathedral positions in New Zealand and the United States, and was organist of the Royal Hospital School, Holbrook, Suffolk until September 2018. He is a Fellow, prize-winner and former Trustee Council member of the Royal College of Organists, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is a tutor for the RCO Academy Organ School, an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, an active recitalist, and a sought-after broadcaster, writer and presenter.
Saint Peter's Singers (SPS) is a chamber choir associated with Leeds Minster, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England that celebrated during the Season 2017/2018 the fortieth anniversary of the choir's formation by Harry Fearnley in 1977. An anniversary concert took place at Leeds Minster on Sunday 25 June 2017 with the National Festival Orchestra and soloists Kristina James, Joanna Gamble, Paul Dutton and Quentin Brown. Further anniversary year events included Bach Cantatas and Music for Christmas at Fulneck Church in August and December respectively, Handel Coronation Anthems at Holy Trinity, Boar Lane as part of the Leeds Handel Festival in September and a tour of East Anglia in October. In November at Leeds Town Hall, the Singers participated in Herbert Howells's masterpiece Hymnus Paradisi with Leeds Philharmonic Chorus and Leeds College of Music Chorale under the direction of Dr David Hill with the Orchestra of Opera North. 2018 began with a concert of Sacred Choral Masterworks at Leeds Town Hall in February and Bach's Mass in B minor at Leeds Minster on Good Friday 2018 in memory of long-serving member Jan Holdstock. The final concert of the current season takes place at Leeds Minster on Sunday 24 June at Leeds Minster at 5.30. At this event will be presented the first performance of a new work from composer Philip Moore commissioned for the Singers' 40th anniversary – the motet Tu es Petrus – along with music by E W Naylor, Arvo Part, Sir Hubert Parry, Judith Bingham and Maurice Durufle.
The Choir of Leeds Minster is the choir of Leeds Minster, Leeds, England, which became a Minster in September 2012. The choir was founded by vicar, Richard Fawcett probably as early as 1815, and was certainly in existence by 1818. The church's choir - boys and men - was, from its origins, a charge on the church rate; and, in what was then a largely non-conformist town, a none-too-popular one. By the 1830s, the choir's resourcing had been taken over by a list of voluntary subscribers. On arrival as Vicar of Leeds in 1837, Walter Farquhar Hook said he found "the surplices in rags and the books in tatters". Additional to its extensive commitment in the provision of choral services, the choir is known to a wide public through many recitals, recordings and broadcasts and by its regular choir tours - the first tour was held in July 1968 and the 40th anniversary tour, from 22 to 27 July 2008, included singing in Ely Cathedral, King's College, Cambridge, the National Musicians' Church St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London, All Saints Pastoral Centre London Colney and the Chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea.
The Southern Cathedrals Festival is a five-day music festival held in rotation among the English cathedrals of Chichester, Winchester and Salisbury, in the penultimate week of July. The festival was restored in 1960 after initial attempts to create the annual occasion were followed by 28 years without it. The respective director of music acts as festival director when it is that cathedral's turn to host the event.
Sheffield Bach Society was founded in 1950 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the death of J S Bach in Leipzig, and to bring the music of Bach to Sheffield audiences. It was led first by Norman Barnes, then for many years by Dr Roger Bullivant, who conducted the choir for 38 years. Dr Bullivant was succeeded by Peter Collis in 2000, and in 2010 by Dr Simon Lindley. The Society’s President, Professor George Nicholson, conducted during the 2021-22 season, and the choir appointed new conductor Philip Collin to start from September 2023.
Alfred Melville Cook was a British organist, conductor, composer and teacher.
St Albans Cathedral Choir is an English cathedral choir based in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England. It is made up of around 20 boy choristers aged 7–14 and 12 adult lay clerks. In 2003 it appeared in the coronation scene of the film Johnny English.
Norman Orville Scribner was an American conductor, composer, pianist and organist. He was most widely known as the founder of The Choral Arts Society of Washington, and as its artistic director for over 45 years.
Thomas William Hanforth FRCO was a composer and organist based in England.
Harold Aubie Bennett FRCO, FTCL, Hon.RCM was a composer and organist based in England.
Patrick Russill is an English choral conductor, organist and music conservatoire teacher.
Donald Frederick Hunt was an English conductor, from Gloucester. He was a distinguished English choral conductor, having made his conducting debut with the Halifax Choral Society in 1957.